I’m struck by how many emailers concur with my correspondent yesterday. Here are a couple of typical ones:
Yes it could well be Gore in ’08. There are many reasons but the most powerful is his statesman’s status. He has a unique, unassailable position in having won 2000 but lost in the Supreme Court, and his wilderness years have strengthened and matured him, allowed him to speak his mind forthrightly and without calculation. After all, what further could anyone do politically to Al Gore that he has not already suffered?
Personally, I found his recent speeches absolutely electrifying; I was truly stunned by his transformation. He has become America’s conscience, and is warm, articulate and impassioned. He has gone through the valley of tears and what did not break him has strengthened and transformed him – I will use that word again. In comparison, Hillary’s politcal calculations look tawdry and obvious.
Another heartland Democrat agrees:
Hillary’s problems are beyond her weakness with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party – which I would argue isn’t so much its base as its activism – as is her high negative Q ratings and the persistent reluctance of voters to elect a woman president. (This is the elephant in the living room, the thing nobody wants to talk about but which lurks in the subconscious of the American psyche.) Gore has a somewhat "softer" image than Hillary, is considered far more likeable – which he has enhanced over the past five years – and still harkens back to the "good ol days" of the Clinton Administration (which recent polls, to nobody’s surprise except Bush loyalists, indicate Americans in retrospect preferred).
Here in the Heartland, which so many of the East Coast pundits seem to ignore so easily – yet historically proves to be the bellwether for voting trends – Gore plays considerably better than Hillary. Rank and file Democrats, including Yellow-dog Democrats such as myself, will still vote for Hillary – but I think most of us would prefer Gore.
Josh Marshall gets it as well. Check out Gore’s SNL appearance here. Review here. My own preference for Bush over Gore in 2000 was primarily because I feared Gore would increase government spending and regulation too much. Yeah: I know. Gore’s credibility on the environment – a growing issue – his history of foreign policy hawkishness but opposition to the Iraq war, and his general association with what has become Clinton era nostalgia, do indeed make him an interesting possibility. Then there’s just the karma. If we’re looking to heal the wound of 2000, who better?
